"I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret,
between the shadow and the soul."
o0o
In the midst of hollowed wails and broken sobs, the dam broke on a mother's tears. Thousands of images scattering across the mind of a child, different picture frames teetering into the spaces between her synapses and collapsing the innocence she was never born with.
Dust arose from the busied street lanes and speeding cars, whilst the rocketing skylines above rattled with the shuffling of paper and drooling thought of early morning coffee. It was inevitable that the man who thought that dying would be the better way to go rather than being fired was about to get his wish. Whilst the child that scream in her mother's push chair only wanted love instead of a scolding, her final plea would be something she would never gain.
Different people, different lives, all of them screaming into the mind of the girl who began to stumble off the sidewalk. Her head was pounding, the side temples of her head ached with a new found energy surging into her fingertips and she was squeezing her eyes together like the little girl who hid in the corner of her bed away from the monsters. Dragging her hands across her ears like a duvet, she tripped into the middle of the road and fell to the ground in a destructive dance. Her red shoes scuffing the ground a whilst the gravel scraped her knees.
Her mind could not handle the souls of others, thousands of others as her brain waves tuned into everyone else's. Individual thoughts and emotions continued to screech their way into her head as she sobbed into herself.
The vacant road rumbled to life with another encore of traffic but she was too blind to see what was happening to her whilst her mind was alive with what was happening to everyone else.
Mouth open in an invisible scream, the girl was deadly silent as onlookers began to pay attention to her losing her sanity. Her pain was hushed and silent. Except these thoughts weren't hushed or silent; they were loud and destructive. It was like a bomb was exploding underneath the soft wisps of golden brown hair and nothing about it was soft or humane, it was destroying the very fabric of her reality.
The girl in the middle of road began to rock as the voices screeched louder and no matter how hard she raked her nails down her cheeks, they would not leave her head. Her breathing became erratic and soon her knees buckled and she began to scream.
The line of cars shooting past her began to speed up, people seemed to walk faster and the girl could hear the thoughts of the man driving the car straight towards her cowered body. The vehicle sped up, unable to see the girl as he came closer and she could feel his arrogance and his hatred to human contact. Unable to control herself, she fell into a vortex of memories that did not belong to her. Like a swirling corridor of pain and hatred, it was like unlocking a door no child should ever enter.
With the voices howling and the blustered noises of everyday life, the girl threw her hands to the ground; digging her fingernails into the gravel of the road. A stream of blue erupted from her palms, shaking the white buildings up high and making onlookers wobble in their heels and business boots.
She could hear them staring at her, she could feel the raw fear radiating and this single emotion was eating her alive. The driver of the vehicle became aware of her presence just as she reached her limit. Screaming louder and throwing her entire body into the ground, you could see the dust particles being sucked in and feel the gravitational pull towards her tiny body.
In an instant, onlookers stepped back just before the car's bumper slammed into her. However, it never reached it's mark, the bumper stopped inches from her shoulders and it was the pure agonising horror the driver felt that sent the girl's head spinning and caving in on itself. A wave of electric enigma shot from her, like a sonic boom the structure of the buildings around her began to crumble.
People were thrown back with a force unlike anything seen before, another wave rippled outward as the girl screeched for mercy. This time it was powerful, mind numbing, skin cutting and rubble began to fall to the ground along with the tall city structures.
In a chorus of panicking citizens, a shield began to form over the girl; a shimmering dome formed around the crouched child just as larger more destructive pieces of falling buildings began to topple down.
They smacked up against the force field as people ran past her, screaming for safety but their fear was running high in a tank which was feeding her mind.
Looking up with her mouth cracked open in pained shock, the girl stumbled back and began to sob once again. She was disorientated, her head was aching far too much for her to comprehend as she stared forward. Watching an elderly man hobble towards her, away from a skyline as it toppled just behind him, he slammed against the blue shield and shoved his fist against it.
Screeching at her animosity, his deep voice bellowed for a forgiveness she could not give. Instead his presence panicked her more, she began to hyperventilate and the shield broke down making the man topple in.
His fingers brushed her ankle just as she began to calm down but the physical touch made her sense ignite. Throwing her arms around herself, her back hit the ground with a final shock wave; knocking her unconscious and sending a deep blue wave pounding across the area.
The buildings were nothing but a flat ruin, slightly edged so they were flattened at an angle pointing outwards. A thick layer of dust began to arise from the timber which had collapsed and likewise smoke erupted from the buried car exhaust engines; a crackling of hot fire flicked nearby with thick black smoke revealing itself from the ignition. Like an arena, the crater which had been devised now lit up with a pure blue sky, like God had witnessed her act of unforeseeable sin. Even with the piercing silence of morbid man slaughter, she could still hear screams in her head. The bond created wasn't broken. And she was connected to each one during their last moments; lying there in the painful truth, she could feel herself being haunted by their shadows.